The Silver Linings Playbook
Matthew Quick
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
I really liked this book. I laughed, I cried, and wanted more and more. I read it a week after discovering it's existence- like a few others I saw the movie trailer first. I wasn't shocked by much because the trailer tells you tons, like how Tiffany lost her job but I was generally pretty surprised by things- Pats secret, the Nikki-Tiffany thing and more. I give it a 5 even though I didn't understand or relate to the football stuff and it was kind of slow in those bits. I did really love it though, and can't wait to see the movie. I liked the ending, especially that it isn't necessarily a happy one. I felt so sad for Pat with him wanting Apart Time to end and thinking he and Nikki would reunite. I actually cried at some points. I thought Danny seemed awesome with all his sayings- crazy cheddar, etc. and he seemed like a really intriguing character. Cliff seemed nice, maybe a little bit odd. The stuff between Pat and his dad was very interesting though. It definitely helped make the book the masterpiece it is. I was so happy when Pats mum stood up for herself.
I loved the Montage part, and many other parts too.
On a different note, I thought the book would have much more swearing than it did, especially from hearing reviews of the movie and it's apparent foul language, but it wasn't too terrible, and only really picked up in the last half. Altogether, an amazing book, I might even buy it ;)
People compare this to The Perks of being a Wallflower, but they are pretty different. Perks is YA, while Silver Linings is not. Though the main characters both seem young in the way they express their feelings and thoughts, etc. In Silver Linings I kept forgetting that Pat was over 40. The main characters both have mental illnesses, but Charlie from Perks seems to have more of a PTSD thing than Pat.
the spoiler sessions
When Pat first got letters from Nikki I was so happy for him. However, when I realised it was Tiffany all along..
"I smell a woman’s perfume.
I recognize the scent.
I breathe in deeply to ready myself.
I open my eyes.
“I’m sorry, okay?” she says, but it’s not Nikki. “I never thought it would lead to this. So I’m just going to be honest now. My therapist thought you were stuck in a constant state of denial because you were never afforded closure, and I thought I might afford you closure by pretending to be Nikki. So I made up the whole liaison thing in an effort to provide you closure, hoping you would snap out of your funk and would be able to move on with your life once you understood that being reunited with your ex-wife was an impossibility. I wrote all the letters myself.
Okay? I never even contacted Nikki. She doesn’t even know you’re sitting here. Maybe she doesn’t even know you are out of the neural health facility. She’s not coming, Pat. I’m sorry.”"
This part, however made me cry quite a lot.
"My eyes burn. My face flushes. Suddenly I realize that for the past two months I have been completely delusional, that Nikki is never coming back and apart time is going to last forever.
Nikki.
Is.
Never.
Coming.
Back.
Never.
I want to hit Tiffany.
I want to pound her face with my knuckles until the bones in my hands crumble and Tiffany is completely unrecognizable, until she no longer has a face from which she can spew lies."
But in the end of it I smiled AND cried.
"She says, “I need you, Pat Peoples; I need you so bad,” and then she begins to cry hot tears onto my skin as she kisses my neck softly and sniffles.
It is a strange thing for her to say, so far removed from a regular woman’s “I love you,” and yet probably more true. It feels good to hold Tiffany close to me, and I remember what my mother said back when I tried to get rid of my friend by asking her to go to the diner with me. Mom said, “You need friends, Pat. Everybody does.”
I also remember that Tiffany lied to me for many weeks; I remember the awful story Ronnie told me about Tiffany’s dismissal from work and what she admitted to in her most recent letter; I remember just how bizarre my friendship with Tiffany has been—but then I remember that no one else but Tiffany could really even come close to understanding how I feel after losing Nikki forever.
I remember that apart time is finally over, and while Nikki is gone for good, I still have a woman in my arms who has suffered greatly and desperately needs to believe once again that she is beautiful.
In my arms is a woman who has given me a Skywatcher’s Cloud Chart, a woman who knows all my secrets, a woman who knows just how messed up my mind is, how many pills I’m on, and yet she allows me to hold her anyway. There’s something honest about all of this, and I cannot imagine any other woman lying in the middle of a frozen soccer field with me—in the middle of a snowstorm even —impossibly hoping to see a single cloud break free of a nimbostratus.
Nikki would not have done this for me, not even on her best day.
So I pull Tiffany a little closer, kiss the hard spot between her perfectly plucked eyebrows, and after a deep breath, I say, “I think I need you too.”"
And one more thing that I loved?
I fell in love with this book so much. I never wanted to stop reading. I still wish I never had.
FIVE STARS.
XO,XO.
>>>----->ARIA\EMMI<------<<<
ps. (notice this is my first gif-free review! ;)
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